Public Service Announcement

Public Service Announcement

Despite the Internet’s efforts to make you feel otherwise, every thought you have during the day, every next step you make in the course of your hour, everything you eat, is just not that damn interesting, people.

Now, the majority of you confine this kind of thing to Twitter, which is great because it’s a choice whether to follow you in such a way or not. But now the heinousness of Twitter to LJ (and, apparently, WordPress) is upon us. There is still hope, though. If all your daily tweets go in one post, that’s fine. But I ask, on behalf of people like me who really do not give a flying fuck what cool thing you just saw out your window or that you found your favorite pasta sauce at Whole Foods: Put that shit behind a cut.

Don’t make me ask again.

Write-a-thon Week 3 Brings Amazing News

Write-a-thon Week 3 Brings Amazing News

Week 3 starts today and I have two bits of good news to report.  First, according to the CW workshop admins, people donated enough money in a little over 48 hours to cover the cost of purchasing new laptops for the students who lost theirs to theft.  You know how earlier today I said there were times I just wanted to walk away from this community?  Well, this is one of the reasons I don’t.  We are a community and we take care of each other in times of need.  People’s generosity always amazes me, even though I see it time and again.  Thanks to everyone who donated or spread the word.  I’m sure the students and admins and teachers appreciate everything and will always do so.

Speaking of generosity, I just got a note from a write-a-thon coordinator letting me know what sponsorships have come in so far.  A few people went ahead and donated their money (Linda Addison did so with the warning that she knew where to find me if I didn’t write — eek!) and some of them weren’t on the list I was keeping to see if I’d reached my goal yet.  Well lo, with the addition of these fine folks, I found out that I met my goal of having $1000 pledged!  In fact, the total is actually $1010 if I meet all of my writing goals.  And I have a ton of motivation to do so.  Thank you, everyone.  This really made my day.

So!  This week I’m thinking of doing chapter 2, since I have a vague idea of how it will go and I’m interested to see where my girls will take me next.  This is probably going to be a longer one, so I’m back to grinding out 1K a day or so.  Should be interesting as I’m going to be upstate for most of the week.  At least it’s a nice place and quiet in the evenings :)

William Sanders, Senior Bigot, Helix

William Sanders, Senior Bigot, Helix

I love writing science fiction and fantasy, I love reading science ficton and fantasy. I love (some parts of) fandom, I love (many parts of) this community. But there are times when I really feel like I could, and should, and must, walk the hell away before I end up hating all humanity. This is one of those times.

From a rejection letter William Sanders of Helix sent out:

I’m impressed by your knowledge of the Q’uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people – at the end we still don’t really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can – and I was pleased to see that you didn’t engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.

[…]

the narrator seems to be saying that it was this incident which caused him to take up the jihad, but he’s being mendacious (like all his kind, he’s incapable of honesty);

Full letter here.

You know what makes me so mad about this, beyond the obvious? I want to like Helix. It’s published some great stories by some wonderful writers (some of whom are my friends). But all of that is canceled out by the insane bigotry on display in that letter. And people like this are not shunned, cast out, or made an example of.

As I said. There are times.

ETA: Sanders responds:

Son, hasn’t anybody ever told you that public posting of a private email message is contrary to the rules both of accepted internet practice and common courtesy?

I do appreciate your efforts to be fair – certainly far more so than most of the other people in this ward, ah, group – but the fact remains that you’ve done something both socially and professionally unacceptable in posting it at all. So if you had any idea of submitting anything else to Helix, forget it. I won’t work with people who pull this kind of shit.

I suppose this is what I get for trying to be a nice guy, and give you a little encouragement rather than the standard thanks-but-no-thanks form rejection. Silly me.

(I notice, too, the presence in the lynch mob of another person I’ve tried to help, and to whom I thought I’d been particularly kind. No good deed, etc.)

Of course none of these people have read the story, and so they fail to grasp the context – that I was talking not about Muslims, or Arabs, or Oompa Loompas or any other religious or ethnic group, but about terrorists and violent extremists. (That being, after all, what your story was about.)

But I don’t feel any need to defend myself, or Helix, to these people; indeed I doubt that there’s anybody outside their little Mutual Masturbation Society who gives a damn what they think about anything at all.

They are cordially invited to have intercourse with their precious selves. I’m sure most of them could use the practice.

That makes it all better, right??

The contributions by lwe/Lawrence Watt-Evans on the thread are… special, as well.

Daughter of ETA: There is more commentary here and also here with the full rejection reposted, since apparently the person who was rejected deleted it from the original thread.  Speaking of the rejected person, he’s put up a post explaining that we’re all taking Mr. Sanders out of context:

There is a truly despicable Muslim character in my story. Sorry, world. Maybe I was playing into prejudices. Sanders was talking about that character, so it wasn’t an out-of-the-blue rant, it was targeted to the content of my story. In context, his comments were directed at MY character and those types of extremists. People are taking it out of context and interpreting it too broadly if they think that Sanders was referring to all Arabs or all Muslims. I’m sure that if my character was a Timothy McVeigh-like extremist, Sanders would have used different but equally scornful language. The extremism of MY character is what drew his ire, and so if there is any blame it’s MY blame.

I’m sure you can image what I have to say to that.  Lucky you, I posted it in the comments. I would cut Luke some slack due to him probably freaking out a little when Sanders was all “You’ll never be published in MY magazine again!” except that from his description of his own story I’m not at all convinced that he didn’t write something sketchy and racist himself.  I’m willing to be proven wrong.

More help for Clarion West (of a different sort)

Just found out yesterday that someone broke into the Clarion West sorority house and stole 4 laptops, some clothing, and other stuff. Apparently they broke a window and grabbed everything they could. There are many times I wish I had the power to send down lightning on someone, and this is one of them. If this had happened to me at my Clarion I would have been just devastated. I also could not have afforded to replace the laptop. This is the situation 4 students find themselves in now.

They have temporary computers, I hear, but will definitely need some replacements. Clarion West is collecting donations toward that end. I know many of you have pledged or donated for the write-a-thon and may not be able to spare anything. But if you can, please do. Having a laptop stolen, no matter who you are, is heartbreaking. But when you’re a writer and your laptop is your livelihood, it’s indescribably horrid.

If you can, please donate here (be sure to put in the notes that this is for laptop replacement and not the general fund) and contact the workshop admins at info -at- clarionwest.org if you can help by donating/selling at low cost a spare laptop. Thanks.

This Week @ Fantasy

This Week @ Fantasy

This week we had a lot of interesting stuff go up at Fantasy, so you should all check it out!

First, this week’s story, Marrying the Sun, by the writer to watch out for, Rachel Swirsky.  Rachel has also agreed to do a Puppet Strings Author Spotlight for us, so go over there and ask her questions about her story and such.

And if you’re still in need of a fiction fix, there’s an excerpt from Seaborn by Chris Howard available.

On the non-fiction side, I did an interview with Gregory Banks about disability in SF/F fiction and there’s a review of Empress by my homeslice Naamen.

And, of course, today is Fantasy Friday.  Time to Blog For A Beer!  We’re talking about superheroes and property damage today, inspired by my marathon watching of Justice League Unlimited.  Almost every show in the Bruce Timm DC Animated Universe is like crack to me, so I’m happy to get a chance to talk about it (even if this particular aspect is annoying).

Write-a-thon Week 2 Update

Write-a-thon Week 2 Update

The reason for the lack of updates this week is that I hadn’t been writing much (due mainly to work and such) but I knew that this week’s chapter wasn’t going to be very long so I felt okay about waiting.  Last night, when I was very tired and wanted to sleep, I had a revelation about the chapter, switched my protagonist from female to male, and wrote it all in one sitting.  It’s only around 1000 words and isn’t likely to get much longer in revision, so I guess I have room for a longer chapter somewhere else.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
5,335 / 53,000
(10.1%)

Since I’m done early this week, I’m going to pause for more research. I just got a book on Egypt by Margaret Murray, one of the few early female Egyptologists, and I’m looking forward to seeing her take on different aspects of the culture and history.

Cosmology

Cosmology

I’m hitting a strange wall in writing this novel now in that I have not nailed down the cosmology of the culture, therefore I can’t write the interstitial bits between the chapters explaining what the purpose of the different neighborhoods are, which all depend on the cosmology.  This does not completely stop me from writing the chapters because I can work around it, come back and change, etc.  But having that nailed down would really help me figure out what needs to happen in some of the pivotal parts.

When I first conceived of the city, I put it in an alternate universe of dynastic Egypt where certain stupidities did not happen.  But now I’m waffling — I’m not sure if I want the timeframe to be dynastic Egypt or pre-dynastic.  And I don’t know if I want my gods and goddesses to be actual deities or closer to the indigenous concept of NTRs (the word some Egyptologists translate as gods) as senses or aspects of consciousness.  The reason for all this waffling is that I’m reading some books by alternative Egyptologists, some of which I’ve read before (but it’s becoming obvious to me that I’ve forgotten a fair bit of the info), and they keep presenting theories that make me want to rework the cosmology and some parts of the culture to fit them.  At the same time, I feel like if I tried to incorporate all of this stuff, I’ll end up with a culture so alien and strange no one will be able to relate.  And then there’s the stuff that would also totally mess up my overall plot, which I cannot have.  But… it’s all so interesting!

Right now I’m resolved to finish the books, then try to sort out all the ideas and such in my head.  I obviously need a cosmology and culture that feels real nd thought-out, but I am afraid of too much complexity overwhelming the story.

And the final thing I am trying to keep in mind is that I’m writing a novel and not a historical essay.  I’m not even writing a historical novel, but a fantasy novel set in a fantasy world that is based on an actual historical period.  And therefore I am allowed to make stuff up.  I actually do need to remind myself of this when I go into Writing Egypt mode because I’ve done so much research on this stuff and I love the real history and culture and want to be true to those things I love.  Still, it’s my novel, I am allowed to make shit up.

Right?

Keeping Count

Keeping Count

A little while ago I calculated how long the novel would be based on the number of chapters averaging about 4K each.  I also have a prologue and suspect an epilogue, neither of them longer than 2K.  That comes out to about 55K total.  It’s low, but when I go through and edit i’ll probably add at least a thousand words to each chapter filling in sensory detail and what stuff looks like, since I tend to leave that out the first time through.  Other people take out words, I have to shove them in!

So right now my goal is 55K, and thus I got one of these cute little progress things:

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,388 / 55,000
(8.0%)

I’m not counting the prologue I wrote since it needs to be rewritten… a lot.  Still, it’s a good start.

Shall I take a day off or get started on the next chapter?  Decisions, decisions…